Seguin bus service ramps up

By Zeke MacCormack :
May 2, 2013
: Updated: May 4, 2013 9:35pm

SEGUIN — Scanning the local H-E-B parking lot for her ride home, Guadalupe Calderon was pleasantly surprised to learn she could have taken a bus rather than rely on friends for a lift to the store.

“I'm very happy. I never drove,” Calderon, 87, said Wednesday of the Connect Seguin transit system that quietly began service on a one-hour, 10-stop route around town two weeks ago.

During the “soft opening” only about 10 people a day used the bus, which costs $1 a ride, 50 cents for seniors, and runs 7 a.m.-6 p.m. weekdays.

Ridership is expected to grow with the launch this week of a publicity campaign and the upcoming installation of bus stop signs and benches.

Mayor Don Keil said the service is needed because many residents lack vehicles and are unable to easily reach destinations like the hospital, shopping centers and government offices.

“It gives them the ability to live their lives with a degree of freedom,” he said at a ribbon-cutting Wednesday for the initiative, whose $120,000 yearly cost will be split by the city and the Alamo Area Council of Governments. Both have committed to run it through the end of 2014.

“There's always been a need to move people from the west side of town to the retail centers in the east,” he said.

AACOG already offered demand-response bus service in its 11-county area, spokesman Kevin Sturdivant said, but Seguin has the only fixed-route service outside Bexar County these days.

He said past AACOG efforts to establish such a service in Pearsall and Kerrville were discontinued years ago.

Since the drivers in Seguin can't make change, riders here are encouraged to buy packs of tickets, called “speedy bucks.”

Local residents Samuel and Mecaiah Pantoja were eager to use the bus.

“It has good pricing,” said Mecaiah Pantoja, 23.

Her husband, 24, agreed, saying, “I usually have to walk about two miles to work.”